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11 December 2017

Hi everyone, hope you're all well. I have a post on the Paperartsy blog tonight where the topic this fortnight is fave things. Very hard to contain my favourites I have to say :-D but I have added some products and techniques as well.

There are more photo's and info on the PA blog if you'd like a closer peek.

27 November 2017

Hi everyone, I hope you're well! I have a post on the Paperartsy Blog tonight where I'm sharing my take on topic 18 which is ripped, torn, burnt. I've been playing with some cute JOFY 58 Snowman stamps from the winter release and Lutradur.

13 October 2017

Hi everyone, hope you're all well. I'm happy to be joining in with the Paperbabe Stamps Christmas release today with is huge and full of gorgeous stamps and substrates. Kim has designed the cutest little set of nativity stamps with matching mdf substrate shapes which you can see in the photo above all made up in. It really is the most gorgeous set to make up and give as a gift to sit on a shelf edge or table at Christmas, this one will be going to my new baby Grandson :-).

Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus are delightful designs and the baby and the manger are separate then glued together once all the pieces have been joined, there's also a dots stamp for Mary's dress.

The adorable flock of sheep are perfectly designed so that you can make them all look different by changing where you glue on the head and how you angle it. There are separate stamps for the body, head and the little curls. The shepherd even has a separately stamped crook and stamp to make the stripes on hIs tunic.

It wouldn't be a nativity without the three kings and you'll find that you'll be using two stamps to make the kings and the Joseph figure, it's easy to make them all look different with the colouring. I gave the Kings all the same hair colour to make them an obvious set but gave them different skin colour to vary them. Again with Joseph and the shepherd it was easy to make them different with hair and skin colour and also the clothing. I gave richer more opulent colours to the Kings and lighter colours to the other characters.

The solid patches for the cows are separate stamps so you can vary the colour, the donkey works really well coloured here with iced spruce distress oxide ink. I also embellished the pieces with black, white, gold and silver pens.

And here is the Angel, she is gorgeous and I've given her a metallic halo using a gold glitter metallic pen and liberal glittering on her wings. Then we have the very clever star trees background piece, the stars have channel grooves on one side that the wire sits in then the you glue another star on top, I was very impressed with this and how it is put together, it's the perfect backdrop for the Nativity and I coloured again with the gold pen and liberal amounts of the chunky glitter.

I made a card with the little angel too, coloured her as before and used the star stamps from the Nativity stamp set to stamp the front die cut panel with Antique Linen distress Oxide ink. I've covered some of the stars with glitter and popped the Angel inside the aperture.

Staying with the Angel theme Kim has released substrates for her gorgeous Paper Angel stamp set, there is a set for all the Angel styles with spacers, wings and hanging pieces too so that you can pop her on a wall but there is also a separate stand as well so she can be upright on a surface.

I've coloured with pens and pencils, added lots of glitter and stamped a pattern with the new doodle stars set on the centre pale of her dress.

19 August 2017

Hi everyone, hope you're all well out there in blogland. I'm very happy to be featuring a project on the PaperArtsy Blog tonight for the current topic of books and book binding and have enjoyed working with a gorgeous set of Jofy stamps to make my little concertina folded pamphlet style book.

There's something about little books and especially this type that folds out as you can do so many things on that surface. Anyway, there's a bit of a walk through of it on the PA blog and lots more photo's to see too. I hope you'll join in with the challenge, there's lots of inspiration from all the designers with a huge variety of styles which are sure to get the creative juices going.

22 April 2017

Hi everyone, I'm sharing another of my mail art postcards today which we're going to be making at the Craft Barn on Monday. I enjoy working with these images and they're great for colouring and masking too which is what we'll be doing. I made this a large postcard size turned to portrait orientation so I could create the scene.

I masked the images from the Blossoming woman set and used the template that comes with the set which helps with that. There's also a stencil included so the set is excellent value for money as you get both a positive and negative version of the female figure.

These cats are gorgeous, I've used the three from the Indigo Cats set (large, medium and small) and the single cat and bird stamp, Feline Friend. The stamps work so well with bright colours of distress inks which is what I've used together with pencils, a bit of white marker and some stickles for sparkle

18 April 2017

Hi everyone, I'm back today with an Artcuts layered frame finished over the weekend. I covered all the little square wood tiles with Chyogami papers and although I was using up a lot of small pieces in many different patterns I like the random mix and how they work together. I added in some hearts and butterflies and liked the effect of seeing a little of the birch ply frame underneath. I think this frame would work well with a mirror in the centre but for this one I painted the back piece in gold and added a butterfly and gold bow.

31 March 2017

Hi everyone and thanks for joining me today. I have an exciting announcement that I've been bursting to tell you about for a while. So the day has arrived and I've been I nvited by Kim Paperbabe to be a guest artist for Paperbabe Stamps which has actually been discussed by us on and off since a day at Ally Pally in about 2009/2010 or somewhere around then when Kim talked of starting her stamp company. How time flies and here we are with my garden fairies images turned into four sets of stamps which are being released today, thank you Kim! We're having a blog hop to introduce them with some of my favourite crafty people joining in with their wonderful creativity.

Here are all the details of the hop and my Garden Fairies Stamps, the Butterfly Catcher, Butterfly Emerges, Butterfly Fairy, and Musical fairy, they are a larger set and each includes a beautiful sentiment.

To add extra fun to our blog hop... we are offering up a prize.

The whole garden fairies collection goes to one lucky winner.

Here are the details:

A winner will be chosen at RANDOM from any of the designer's blogs and the PaperbabeStamps Blog to win.

Just leave a comment on any of the designer's blogs listed below or the Paperbabe stamps blog for your chance to win! (you do not need to comment on all blogs to qualify but it increases your chances)

Deadline: You have until midnight on Sunday, 2nd April to leave a comment.

Please check the Paperbabe Stamps blog on Wednesday, 5th April to see if you are one of our lucky winners.

Here's a few samples .....

I've created a garden for Butterfly Fairy with a mix of distress ink and acrylic paint and she's coloured with a base coat of distress ink and pencil over the top, I have lots of other little scenes in mind to put her in.

Here's Butterfly Emerges waking up after sleeping in the blossom! She's stamped over a background of distress ink and distress oxide ink, I enjoyed how I got some of the ink splats in the cocoon area of the stamp. Love the font on the sentiment and it's a lovely size to use on the inside of a card too.

I've used the little accessory stamps in the background, it was great to stamp some falling blossoms with the tiny Sakura style flower stamps and the butterflies are very handy to dot around the scene.

Butterfly catcher is stamped onto Kraft card and coloured with pencils, it's one of my favourite surfaces for pencils in fact and especially when colouring with very light colours as on the wings and her hair for instance.

I'll be sharing Musical Fairy later in the week but you'll see her beautifully portrayed as you go along the blog hop.

As I mentioned earlier in the post some of my favourite crafty friends are joining in the hop to help me introduce my stamps together with the fabulous Paperbabe Stamps design team to inspire with their ideas on how to use the Garden Fairies stamps. So hop along to the next blog which is the lovely

29 March 2017

Hi everyone, I'm delighted to be featured on the Paperartsy blog tonight with my Topic #5 Blue & Ochre 'Under the sea' mixed media pocket letter using a set of Tracy Scott's gorgeous stamps.

These are a real joy to make and can be a lovely small gift of bits and bobs for a crafty friend.All the info of how I made it and lots of photo's are on the Paperartsy blog if you'd like to have a closer look.

I went down a mixed media media route with the stamps and played with my small gelli plate which is great as you can easily put it on a stamp block and use it as large stamp.

I've used Fresco Finish paints in the translucent colours which keeps things nice and bright over my the thick white cartridge paper. I've brayered the paints onto the gelli plate before stamping the peony stamp, bud and leaves in various order and I was pleased with the results even with the very close patterned peony image.

Of course I made quite a few prints, it's addictive once you start and then I over stamped with the peony in black ink. I've finished off with doodling in black and white pens before making up cards and tags and I have a couple of leftover pieces too.

20 February 2017

Hi everyone, I'm delighted to be joining in with the launch of my friend Kay Carley's gorgeous new stamps for PaperArtsy Kay has added to her gorgeous floral stamp sets with three new sets that work beautifully with the others and they're a delight to work with.

Kay’s EKC 005 set has flowers that immediately reminded me of the forget-me-nots plants in my garden given to me by Kay’s mum so it seemed perfect to use the main floral stamps to try and re-create them. I was able to do that with the small additional single flowers included in the set which makes it so versatile and this also made it easy to stamp the flowers in different colours from the main stamped images.

I was looking to create a busy summer garden feel for my tag from set EKC 006 and that was managed with the aid of PaperArtsy Crackle glaze which for me gives a bit of fuzzy greenery for the background. I love the pretty dragonfly stamps and main flowers which I’ve stamped and painted on tissue so that they’d stand out over the busy background. The sentiments are great too and here I’ve stamped and cut one apart to create a new one for this summer garden.

Bluebells are one of my favourite flowers so I knew I would love painting these from Kay’s gorgeous EKC 007 set in a more painterly style using tiny brushes to achieve the light and shade in the petals. Being a woodland plant I gave the flowers a background of grasses and other flowers from the set which is easy to achieve with Kay’s thoughtful designs.
There's lots of information and an introduction video on the Paperartsy blog with Kay's gorgeous samples and Helen Chilton's beautiful designs as well. I hope you'll pop over and take a look.
Chris x